Sunday, June 01, 2008

now we know

Remember when I was concerned with what Freckles would do to the chickens?

We now know.


Happiness and excitement were in the air here today as we watched two of the duck eggs hatch. The rest of them seemed to have not made it somewhere along the way. Liv and I were jumping up and down and hugging each other when the first one broke free of its' shell. The second one was a surprise we found after the kids had bike ride. Over dinner, we discussed possible names and giggled.

Then....
I can hardly type it. I went downstairs to find that Freckles had broken into the incubator and eaten the ducklings. Those soft, downy wobbly little creatures who were so tuckered out after a 48 hour trial to get out of their eggs....only to be eaten by a fucking dog. He also ate all the remaining eggs in the incubator...eggs that had been stagnating in a warm place for weeks. It's like an avian horror movie down there. Rotten egg yolk, shells and baby duck poop are all over the floor. It stinks.

And we have no ducklings.

We worked so hard learning the various stages of development, candling the eggs to check viability, measuring temperature and humidity, researching the steps of the hatch, turning the eggs multiple times a day, etc. We were ecstatic to see the 'ducks' of our labour. Liv was proud. She called a bunch of her friends inviting them over to see the babes.

And that asshole ate them. Fucking dog. Does anyone want a border collie/golden retriever cross? Great with kids! Bad, really bad with poultry. Liv is heart-broken....So am I.

7 comments:

World Wide Alternative said...

Oh no.
I'm so sorry...Xxx

Victoria said...

OOOH! I am sitting here with my mouth hanging open - that is too awful, so sorry.

Rachael said...

How very sad. Bloody dogs...

Anna said...

OH NO!!!! I am so sorry.

Delena said...

Wow....Tragic. We just got a couple of ducks, too, but what you need next time is a bunch of chickens because apparently they are way more interesting. I know, this is all a little bit too late. Our dog is FIXATED on the caged chickens and couldn't care less about the uncaged come-and-eat-me ducklings. So sad to hear the way things ended. On the upside, I really like your blog.

Delena said...

And now for the second part of my comment..... I just read that you have a chicken, so disregard that rambling before. Still love the blog :) My friend Pam pointed me in your direction.

Going Crunchy said...

Oh my gosh, that is pretty darn heinous. I actually had my cat eat a little birdie that I was caring for as a child. It took me a long time to forgive that kitty, even if I know she was just doing the kitty thing.